:: today's reality tomorrow ::
[Monday] Jun, 30 2008
Category - on the road again
Hamish and Nang
Currently I'm in Vientiane in Lao where yesterday I was happy to watch as Hamish and Nang confirmed their commitment to each other in a traditional Lao ceremony.
[Friday] May, 02 2008
Category - other stuff
quote of the day
[Tuesday] Apr, 08 2008
Category - books
changing values...
Last night I began re-reading Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It must be at least 12 years since I last read this book, and it was one of the books that I decided to bring back from Australia with me because I want to find out how I relate to the story at this time in my life.
Pirsig describes the tale as being "An Inquiry Into Values" and, because I consider that my perceptions of life and life's values have changed so much over the last decade, I am keen to delve once more into the narrative of this guy's personal Chautauqua and discover if there is more or less that this book can reveal to me now. I did the same thing with Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" a couple of years ago and found it to be immensely boring, whereas when I first read it after it's release, it held me enthralled. Hopefully that won't be the case with this revisitation.
Category - Viet Nam
bad traffic events...
We all have bad days, or bad parts to our days. It's how we deal with the aggravation those bad things engender that makes the difference. Today I began my day with a "bad traffic event".
Usually I can drive my motorbike in the peak hour traffic and not worry too much about the congestion, pollution, impatience of other drivers and the dozens of other niggles that add to the driving experience here. Basically, most people on m'bikes here realise we are all in the same position and a tolerance level exists that makes things work. Mostly, drivers of cars, taxis, buses, trucks etc. are cautiously aware that m'bikes are bound to get in their way and drive in a defensive and (sometimes) courteous fashion accordingly. However, this morning I had a bad traffic event with the driver of a very large bus.
Admittedly, I was running 10 minutes late for my class this morning and this was exacerbated when I found the traffic to be just that bit heavier at that later time. So I guess I was already a little tense when I turned right off Nguyen Thi Minh Khai St into Dinh Thien Hoang St and moved into the left hand lane to cross over the oncoming traffic and enter the Uni. gate.
I knew that there was a large bus behind me and, although it frightened the hell out of me, I was not surprised when the driver sounded his very loud air horn, a horn more suited to use on the highway than in the city. This is fairly normal and I took it that the bus driver was just making sure that I knew he was behind me.
As we approached the intersection with Le Duan St, the lights had turned red against us but I needed to turn left maybe 20 metres before the lights. The driver gave me yet another blast with his air-horn and, despite the fact that he had to stop at the red light anyway, and despite the fact that I was on the centre line of the road, continued to blast away at me. I don't know what the decibel rating for these horns is, but whatever it is, it's way too high, particularly if you are only 2 metres away from one with nothing covering your ears.
The continued air-horn blasting got me annoyed, I admit that, but what really pissed me off no end was the verbal spray that I received from the bus driver as he stopped behind me for the lights. His window was open and he gave me a nice mouthful. The sensible thing to do in those circumstances would have been to either, 1) ignore him completely or, 2) give him a large cheesy grin. Instead I turned and gave him a verbal spaying of my own.
I won't repeat verbatim what I called this guy except to say that there was a strong inference that his parents had never been married and that he himself was a very, very stupid individual. With that, he indicated very clearly that he would like to take me over to the sidewalk to sort out this incident in a male oriented fashion. Now I feel that I have grown up and I stopped fighting with other males when I was back in school, but there was a split second when I could feel the synapses in my brain actually short circuiting, some primitive urge took over and I truly felt like going and dragging this guy out of his bus through the window.
However, it was for only a split second, then my civilised self returned and I just laughed at him and drove into the bike parking area. After all, I have a lot to laugh about. Next week, next month, next year, that guy will still be eking out a meagre living driving buses, and I won't be!
[Tuesday] Apr, 01 2008
Category - other stuff
too true...
we males don't really stand a chance...
At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.
- PG Wodehouse
Category - Viet Nam
language is culture, culture is language
Since moving to Viet Nam 4 years ago I have enrolled in 3 Vietnamese language courses, 1 in VN and 2 while back in Australia. I also own 4 different self help learning kits, have 5 electronic Viet-English dictionary programs for laptop and Palm Pilot and 2 reasonably large hard copy dictionaries. But I have to admit that, until now, I have not been completely serious about learning the language. However, I decided that I needed to adopt a more positive attitude toward learning Vietnamese if I am going to continue to live here and accordingly have enrolled in the Vietnamese language course at the Vietnam National University (VNU).
This course is conducted within the University of Social Sciences & Humanities in the Dept. of Vietnamese Studies & Vietnamese Language for Foreigners. It is quite full on because classes are 5 mornings per week and I attend between 8 & 10 am. This is good because it forces me to get up early and get out of my house every morning and creates some structure in what can otherwise be a very unstructured existence.
It also means that I am able to interact with other people every morning, and this is also good, because anyone who has been engaged in any form of writing will know that it can be a very isolating experience. This is especially so when you are working on a PhD because, apart from your supervisors, (and mine are in Brisbane), you are the only person who has the faintest idea about what it is you are doing.
My class has 13 persons. Myself and 12 Koreans, so my interaction is a bit limited but they do take pity on me and talk in English every so often during the break so that I know what is happening. It does add a new dimension to my living in Viet Nam however, as Koreans have by far the largest percentage of any ex-pat group living here and I did not know any up until now.
The University has produced its own range of learning books and accompanying CD's or tapes and they are arguably the best I have come across. It is especially comforting to discover that the same people who wrote these books are the teachers that we have in class. Given my background and previous VN language courses they were going to start me off in module 6 of the elementary 1 course but I decided to start from the beginning again and I'm glad that I did. In this beginning course they concentrate very heavily on pronunciation, something I now realise was sadly lacking in the other courses, so I am happy about that.
I am now in my third week of the course and already I have a better understanding of some aspects of the Vietnamese culture than I had previously. I'm seeing that the adage about language and culture being one in the same is a very accurate one indeed.
[Monday] Mar, 31 2008
Category - other stuff
happiness is...
Recently, a friend of mine updated his Facebook status to read that what he wanted was "to be happy". Since then I've been thinking a lot about what happiness is and what it takes for us to "be happy", and I've come to a conclusion.
In order for us to be happy we simply need to tell ourselves that "we will be happy".
Because, whatever our circumstances, it is up to each of us whether we are happy or not. Happiness comes from within. No other person or thing can give us true happiness.
Recently I have had some life events that have been difficult to deal with. The break-up of a sixteen year long relationship and the death of a close friend are things that have caused me a lot of pain, and will continue to do so for some time to come. However, it is still up to me to decide whether I will be happy in the here and now or not.
Last week I decided that I will be happy. It is as simple and as difficult as that.
[Wednesday] Feb, 27 2008
Category - Viet Nam
my luggage gets an unexpected holiday
I am now back in Sai Gon and was going to write that my flight over with the Qantas owned discount airline JetStar was arguably the most comfortable and friendly (staff wise) flight I have taken over here, and the fact is, it was. However, for approximately 15 passengers including myself it was disappointing to discover that our luggage was still on holiday in Sydney.
I was dreading flying with JetStar because I have had a couple of not so good experiences with them flying domestically in Australia and in the recent past had chosen to fly with Virgin Blue instead. Also, JetStars recent cancelled flights in Australia and their subsequent poor treatment of passengers had added to my angst. Missing luggage aside I couldn't have been more wrong.
Now I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed that my suitcase arrives this evening as promised.
[Monday] Feb, 04 2008
Category - back in oz
spending time with my family
Jay and Grandad
Four generations of Hornsby's
[Friday] Jan, 18 2008
Category - back in oz
Jay's early morning walk
In Townsville, Nth Qld, going for a walk along The Strand, Jay is wearing some of the bright new gear I brought him from Sai Gon.
[Wednesday] Dec, 26 2007
Category - Viet Nam
helmets
Well, it hasn't taken very long for people in Sai Gon to begin flaunting the new helmet laws. It was only on December 15 that nearly every person remarkably complied with the new law requiring helmets for drivers and passengers of motorbikes to be worn everywhere in Viet Nam. The police were out in force making sure that people complied and I really began to believe that this time the law would stick.
However, I now notice more people without helmets, particularly the passengers and, alarmingly, I notice parents not bothering to helmet their children. The other night a bike with 2 adults and 3 children pulled up alongside me and the children were not wearing helmets. When I remarked on this the mother said wryly, "Oh well, its only 3 people not too much". I think she meant that they would cop the fine and not worry too much about it.
Christmas Eve I was over at Tan Binh District and there were dozens of young people riding helmet-less on the busy Cong Hoa St and on the smaller surrounding streets as well. But the classic was just outside my house on Nguyen Dinh Chieu St. I was riding behind a young couple, both of whom were not wearing helmets and a police bike with two uniformed traffic police came past me and drew alongside them. The police totally ignored the fact that these young people had no helmets and went on past them with barely a glance.
Obviously, if the police don't continue to enforce this law people simply won't comply.
[Tuesday] Dec, 18 2007
Category - Viet Nam
first Mai flowers
The first Mai flowers of the season remind me that Tet is on the way.
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roy hornsby
- Christopher Morley